Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.

I have a notebook I move the Math Mammoth pages to that I want him to work on. So, I've just skimmed the Table of Contents of Life of Fred and pulled out the MM sheets that seem to coordinate somewhat and maybe a few ahead of those that we haven't done so we are doing the individual sections of Math Mammoth somewhat sequentially.

I do think your child is expected to know the basic addition and subtraction facts through 10 before beginning Apples, and we'd done most of those sections of Math Mammoth before we began using Life of Fred.

Right now we are doing three days of LoF a week with two days of Math Mammoth. I consider LoF our principle math book right now with MM as a supplement (I bought the Blue series, not the stand alone program). So, the work load is pretty light--I'm not trying to do both on the same day.

And coordinating the two doesn't take a lot of time for me, either. I'm pretty vague about what I pull out of MM to use since most of those lessons can stand alone as well.

I don't coordinate them, we just started with Apples for LOF and started with the appropriate grade level of MM and my son does 2 LOF lessons and 2 MM lessons a week, and then on Fridays we do 'free math' which could be a lesson from Teaching Textbooks, a game, reading a living math book from our shelves, etc.

It seems to work really well and doesn't seem to matter that what we are covering in LOF doesn't exactly correspond with what is being covered in MM.

__________________God bless,
Krista

Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)

Okay, so for LOF, how many books have you been through? Are your 7 and ups bored at all starting with Apples? How many should I expect to use with my almost 8 year old in the next 4 months? I was thinking of buying A-D Elementary books to start and try out. Or should I go slower? And I'm going to get the light blue series of MM grades 1-3 to have on hand too and use 3-4 days a week, depending on how much we use LOF. I have to set aside MEP as a main program for now...sadly, as I totally believe in it. Someday I'll have to write the student self teaching version!

__________________Amanda

wife since 6/03, Mom to son 7/04, daughter 2/06, twin sons 6/08 and son 7/11, son 1/2014

Nope, not bored with Apples, the story is entertaining enough. Expect to move fairly quickly through them, though. If you are sure you are going to use them I would order all the available elementary texts right away.

__________________God bless,
Krista

Wife to a great guy, mom to two boys ('04, '06) and three girls ('08, '10, '12!)

Krista,
Thanks! I'd love to buy all 10 at once but that sure is a big investment! I'm thinking I'll start with A-D to make sure we like them and they work for our family. I did bite the bullet and get MM light blue 1-3 this weekend. I'm hoping I can add MEP math back in in the Fall at some point but for now this will work. Do you think I need to start with 2A for the references or can my son (good with numbers, can add well in his head up to 3 digits ) jump right into 2B? He's not the fastest with face yet, but understands multiplication and can do basic multi and a little division. Lots of algebra type practice with MEP. I was starting with 2A but I don't want to bore him or be too behind. We are schooling through the summer so I could definitely finish 2B by late July if we start with that.

__________________Amanda

wife since 6/03, Mom to son 7/04, daughter 2/06, twin sons 6/08 and son 7/11, son 1/2014

We recently made the switch to Life of Fred for all my dc. I am going with the approach of saving LoF for when they can read independently very well. My 5 yo is working through Math Mammoth Blue series "place value" right now. He will go on to addition, subtraction, etc. until he is ready to read the LoF books.

My 8yo just started with LoF and since she was already able to do the four operations, she has been flying through, doing one book in 3 weeks. I will use Math Mammoth Blue Series as needed to work on specific skills.

We're using Life of Fred as part of our Morning Basket reading, doing the "Your Turn to Play" sections orally as mental math, then using MCP for our sit-down, written, grade-level math for my 3rd and 4th graders.

This is working very well. I bought LOF A-D experimentally, but will buy the rest of the series as soon as I can. We finished Apples in about 4 weeks and are flying through Butterflies right now. We're reviewing and solidifying basics, plus thinking mathematically, which provides an excellent gloss to the more straightforward, skills-based MCP C and D which the kids do during our "table work" time.

Sally

PS: Amanda, my 10yo 4th grader was not AT ALL bored with Apples. Fred is his favorite part of the day, and he always begs to do two chapters. He's kind of a zany kid, and the zaniness of the story appeals to him.

I never came back to thank you ladies for your responses. I ended up deciding not to invest in LOF at the time, after reading a few mixed reviews (that it jumps around, and some of the story lines?). At the same time, we were liking Math Mammoth okay, at first, but after the newness wore off I realized I really wanted to go back to MEP and do it right this time- as in, use the lesson plans! (Sometime during 1B I had stopped using them as much) Its going well. At some point we may use MM again for supplementing, especially since I own grades 1-3 now.. And I'd love to supplement with LOF at some point down the line, so I look forward to hearing more about how you all like it as time goes on.

__________________Amanda

wife since 6/03, Mom to son 7/04, daughter 2/06, twin sons 6/08 and son 7/11, son 1/2014

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